Page 199 of The Iron Flower

I climb on to her back and pull Ariel up in front of me, throwing my arms on either side of Ariel’s frail body and grasping onto the two horns that protrude from Naga’s shoulders. Yvan swings on behind us, his hands grasping the horns just above mine.

Naga springs up, spreads her wings and leaps into the air. Her wings whoosh down, and we rise and rise in rhythmic jolts as I struggle to hold on. Yvan’s arms hold steady around both me and Ariel as men yell and arrows fly overhead and past our sides. One arrow nicks Naga’s remaining ear, and she gives a roar of outrage. She whips her head around and breathes out several more columns of fire, expeditiously taking out the remaining guard towers, then swoops up, racing away from the prison.

I drape myself low over Ariel’s frail, semiconscious body, the dragon’s warm back cutting down on the chilling wind, the air growing colder and colder as we rise. Yvan presses his warm chest against my back, effectively cutting the chill behind me.

Before I know it, the prison is a firelit, smoking nightmare fading into the distance behind us, the glittering center of Valgard just beyond it.

Yvan reaches around me to clasp Ariel’s torn wing. I hold her wing steady as Yvan places his hand over the bloodied tear, his fire rippling through me toward Ariel.

A few moments later, when he removes his hand, Ariel’s wing is reattached, hanging straight once more.

“Can you help her regain consciousness?” I ask him anxiously.

“No,” he says ruefully. “She’s taken too much of the nilantyr—purging it is beyond my abilities. She needs a healer with more training than I have.”

Soon we’re flying over farmland, then black wilderness at a steady pace, the moon lighting our way, gray clouds drifting lazily across the starlit sky. I let out a long, shuddering breath.

For a long while, we fly on, Naga shooting through the sky like our own powerful arrow, Ariel’s raven winging just below us. We fly over broad expanses of forest, the white peaks of the Northern and Southern Spines growing closer up ahead. And then we’re flying over the gigantic spikes of the Northern Spine, the view breathtaking and familiar and terrifying all at once.

“Your glamour’s fading,” Yvan tells me after a time, his breath warm on my neck. I glance down at my hands in the bright moonlight—myownhands, with chipped nails and shimmering skin blessedly free of fastmarks, and I’m surprised by the glamour’s imperceptible release. I turn to find Yvan looking like Yvan again, blessedly back in his own skin.

It’s so quiet up here after all the chaos and noise of Valgard, the only sounds the heavy whooshing of Naga’s huge wings and the muffled whimpers of the little girl strapped to Yvan’s back.

“Where’s Naga taking us?” I wonder as cold air rushes over us.

“To the Amaz.” Yvan’s voice has turned grimly decisive.

I whip my head toward him. “No. You can’t go there. They’llkillyou.”

His gaze is resolute. “Ariel needs their care,” he says. “And it’s the only place we can bring the child. The only place she’ll be safe. They’ll shelter her, you know they will. They’ll protect her.”

“Land near the border,” I insist. “Youcan’tland in the middle of Amaz territory.”

“We have to!” he counters, suddenly fierce. “There’s no time to lose. They’ll have rune-healers, and Ariel needs immediate care. We don’t know how much nilantyr she took—she coulddie!”

My hands tighten around Naga’s horns as my thoughts reel into panic. We can’t do this—it will be suicide for him. Maybe suicide for us all. You don’t just land what appears to be a Gardnerian military dragon in the middle of Amaz territory with a male on its back and live to tell the tale.

But it’s too late to argue.

We crest the Spine, and the rune-light of Cyme comes into view just as Naga begins her rapid descent.

CHAPTER FOUR

BATTLE CRY

Naga flies us right over the Amaz city as she descends at breakneck speed.

Holy Ancient One. Holy Ancient One. Holy Ancient One.

I thrust out my rune-marked forearm, desperately hoping the rune Sage placed on my forearm will spare us from an explosive death.

Pain bursts through my arm as my rune-mark makes contact with the city’s translucent dome, the dome flashing scarlet as the rune on my arm blasts out rays of emerald light.

We hurtle through the shield, the air instantly warming as Naga begins a series of complicated wing maneuvers in an attempt to slow our speed.

Chaos breaks out underneath us.

Women and children cry out in alarm and rush into nearby dwellings. Small deer scatter away from the wide central plaza as Amaz soldiers on horseback gallop in from every direction. The soldiers rapidly fill the plaza and send up a rune-amplified sound that’s so terrifying, I hope to never hear it again.

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